Flying Saucer Quantum Dots: The Secret to Better, Brighter Lasers

Ted Sargent and his team at the University of Toronto have done many things with quantum dots: boost solar cell efficiency , invent infrared imagers , optoelectronics you can apply with a paint brush . Now Sargent and his team have added a new spice to their recipe for colloidal quantum dots that promises to change the struggling prospects of quantum dot-based lasers. If the new approach lives up to its promise, it could lead to brighter, less expensive, and tunable lasers for video projectors and medical imaging among other applications. In research described in the journal Nature , Sargent developed technology for producing quantum dots that have an elliptical, flying-saucer shape. That shape solves a problem with today’s quantum-dot-based lasers: They need to be continually stimulated with more and more power to keep them emitting light, and such stimulation eventually ...